CITY ROOM; News Made in New York and Animated in Taiwan

By COREY KILGANNON

Published: November 21, 2011

Next Media, a Hong Kong-based company with gossipy newspapers in Hong Kong and in Taiwan, has gained an appreciative following for its news cartoons: short animated segments, often humorous and sometimes racy, that provide a visual narrative for major stories.

And nothing is hotter, it seems, than New York City news.

''We read the New York Police blotter, and if we had that in Hong Kong, that would be on the front page,'' said Mark Simon, 47, the company's commercial director in Taiwan.

So perhaps it is inevitable that Next Media is jumping aggressively into the news scene here. A few weeks ago, the company opened Next Media Animation in a narrow office on West 46th Street and started Big Apple Daily, a news site for New York that promises ''a crisp, new perspective to your local news'' and ''fast, accurate and engaging animations.''

To judge by a quick browse of the New York segments, the ''new perspective'' part is outstripping accuracy a bit. For instance, in a post put up recently - about a shooting at a Manhattan nightclub where professional basketball and football players were present - the off-duty athletes are depicted partying on the dance floor in their team uniforms when the shooting occurs.

To convey aspects of the news stories, the segments often lean on literal-minded depictions. In a segment posted about the fund-raising scandal swirling around the New York City comptroller, the Taiwan-born John C. Liu, a smoking ballot box is used to convey shenanigans.

The New York operation is the brainchild of Jimmy Lai, a billionaire media mogul and the chairman of Next Media. The company has had staffers in Taiwan and Hong Kong mining New York City for news for some time, often through crime reports e-mailed from the New York Police Department's press office.

The New York news desk consists of Chris Vespoli, 27, and Alex Shih, 21. Already, Mr. Simon said, the story selection is better, and the segments are more authentic.

''They're walking on the street, talking to friends, watching the local news,'' he said of the two staffers.

Mr. Vespoli said, ''It takes someone in the city to decide what's important and what's worth talking about.'' He and Mr. Shih sat on one recent weekday morning with copies of The New York Post and The Daily News in a sparsely furnished office.

Each weekday, the two workers comb the tabloids and local news sites like Gothamist.com and pick a few spicy, detailed print articles - crime stories and court cases are ideal - for which no video is available.

After conferring with editors in Taiwan, the two men write a script and often gather reference material, including images of streetscapes or vehicles. Mr. Vespoli records narration that is sent electronically to animators in Taiwan, where a three-hour production process, from the initial storyboards to final editing, begins, an assembly-line procedure that creates model figures and authentic-looking backgrounds.

Mr. Simon said he was confident that the site would ''convince people that animation is a way to convey news,'' that the site would become profitable from advertising and that New York media outlets would begin buying segments and ultimately contracting with the company to produce segments regularly.

Some segments, however, have caused problems, Mr. Simon said. A segment about the police shooting of an allegedly mentally unstable woman outside a Manhattan shelter led to complaints from a lawyer for the shelter.

And after a segment was posted about the shooting of a woman on Staten Island, a local minister called Next Media on behalf of the woman's son to say that the video had led some teenagers to taunt the young man and that it had turned his mother ''into a video game.''

''We give a tangible view of what we think happened, and people sometimes get angry,'' Mr. Simon said. ''When you animate what a person said, people react more viscerally. It's just a matter of people getting used to it.''

Some segments resort to sophomoric humor, and some seem stilted or simply look unrealistic. One piece about the new Web site shows runners swarming over the Brooklyn Bridge, which, of course, is not part of the New York City Marathon course. And a cartoon image of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in that segment bears no likeness to the real Mr. Bloomberg.

Mr. Simon said the segments were getting better and did not need to look perfect to generate a buzz.

''There's a saying: 'We don't make art; we make deadlines,''' said Mr. Simon, who used to work for the Department of Defense. He pointed to some segments that have become hugely popular in recent years, like one in 2009 that depicted Tiger Woods crashing his car outside his Florida home and another that portrayed Steven Slater, the flight attendant who left a JetBlue plane parked on a tarmac by deploying an emergency slide.

One problem is that many of the animators in Taiwan are unfamiliar with New York City, although managers there do assign certain workers - ones familiar with the United States - to make ''cultural fixes'' to the segments.

There is no excuse, Mr. Simon said, for not depicting police uniforms and police cars accurately - the same applies to the subway.

''The imagery is out there, so if we get it wrong, people are going to notice,'' Mr. Simon said. ''You don't have to live in New York to know what a New York police car looks like.''

Another potential challenge: New York City bodegas look much different from Taiwanese convenience stores. As far as animating crowds goes, when in doubt, throw in lots of Yankees hats. As for weapons, New Yorkers tend to be acutely aware of the types of guns used in crimes, Mr. Simon said.

''If the shooter used a shotgun,'' he said, ''you have to make sure you're not showing an AK-47.''

This is a more complete version of the story than the one that appeared in print.

PHOTOS: Chris Vespoli, left, and Alex Shih at the Next Media office in New York. Below, an animation about the John Liu fund-raising case. (PHOTOGRAPHS BY MICHAEL NAGLE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES; NEXT MEDIA)